In an article entitled “America’s Largest Indie Photo Store, B&H, Sued for Segregated Bathrooms“, The Daily Beast‘s Kelly Weill reports on the legal troubles of B&H Photo Video, which was slapped “with a civil lawsuit last week, detailing 15 alleged counts of racial and gender discrimination.” Further the article details that, “The suit comes in addition to a fine from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a series of damning testimonies of B&H’s recently unionized workers.”

According to the article, and no surprise to us:

“The facility’s workforce is divided along racial lines, with management, supervisory, and mid-level positions filled predominantly by white men,” the Department of Labor wrote in its suit.”

Moreover, according to the suit, when employees wanted to join a union and request a higher wage, men working for B&H for years were fired in favor of rehiring non-union and lower paid employees. According to the Department of Labor, the company

“hired approximately 100 “Hispanic individuals,” and not a single black or Asian worker. B&H did not hire any women, the suit alleges – and even if they had been hired, women would have found an unfriendly work environment. The warehouse lacked women’s bathrooms and changing rooms, the Labor Department said.”

While the outcome of the various suits remain to be seen, we are reasonably confident that most, if not all, of the accusations are fairly accurate. We would note that the conditions of employment basically mirror the status quo of the communities from whence the owners and higher level management come. It would be quite shocking if the owners and higher level management hired women and co-mingled with the laborers, whether in bathrooms or otherwise.

Finally, and we note this to be no surprise as well, B&H maintains, (on their website (though we could not locate the claim) that, “Every one of our employees is treated with respect and dignity, no matter of race, religion or gender.” “Our employees are well compensated, offered generous benefits, and they are given 17 paid days off in addition to three weeks paid vacation. Few companies offer this.”